


Episode 34: Cooking with Papa ft Papa!!

by ShitpostingfromtheBarricade



Series: Web Series AU [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Don't copy to another site, Family Fluff, Gen, Third Person Limited POV, Web series AU, Webseries AU, camera pov, i will personally fist-fight andrew davies, this quickly became an exercise in incorporating as many les mis lyrics as possible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 13:46:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17643965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade/pseuds/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade
Summary: Cosette's papa discovers her vlog, and she invites him to help her make an episode.This is the accompanying episode toEpisode 30of theMysteries of 24601 Web Series AU.  This will mostly make sense if read by itself, but it will make more sense and be more satisfying to read within the context of the series.Warnings:none





	Episode 34: Cooking with Papa ft Papa!!

**Author's Note:**

> My amazing beta is [PieceOfCait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PieceOfCait/pseuds/PieceOfCait), and I am painfully overdependent on her. Please don't seduce her away from me...
> 
> (also, you should read her fics if you haven't already)

“Hello everyone!” Cosette beams. She is dusted in splotches of white, from her headscarf to the knees she hugs to her chest. “Welcome back to Mysteries of 24601!”

“So quick update since so many people commented asking: I nailed the test! It’s hanging on the fridge and everything! The professor said she was really impressed with my essay portion and actually asked if she could use it as an example for future tests, so I am really psyched! 

“And speaking of exciting news, I’m finally starting to make friends! I know, I know, that probably sounds really lame, it being however many months into the term and everything,” she continues, gesturing with hands that are several shades darker than the powdery arms they’re attached to, “but there’s a difference between study groups and actually hanging out for fun. And I’m finally on stage two! Hopefully I’ll be able to introduce you at some point? Eventually?? But, you know, maybe not,” she shrugs good-naturedly. “Maybe they’re camera-shy or just not interested. That’d be okay too.”

She blinks rapidly several times, reaching up and brushing across her eyes before giggling. “Oh, right, the actual point of this video. So, I edited it out, but there was a bit of an incident in the making of last episode…”

 

The screen cuts to a clean Cosette wearing the same sweatshirt and pulled-back braids as she did in the previous episode.

“Classes aren’t too bad, but I definitely feel as if I’m on a different wavelength from everyone else, so that’s difficult. It’s not that I doubted all of you, but it’s become very apparent since arriving here that my life up until now has been extremely different from--”

“Cosette?” a concerned voice asks off-screen.

“Papa!” Cosette yelps, eyes wide before turning to click something that cuts the video.

 

The video switches back to present-day Cosette. “So during filming for episode 33, Papa inadvertently discovered my vlog. However! Since he only heard me talking about school, I was still able to pass this off as more of a video diary about my life and university. We talked about privacy and making sure that I was being careful with what I posted, but otherwise he was pretty supportive. Honestly, he’s probably just excited to see me invested in my own thing outside of school and the church--I haven’t had anything for him to personally cheerlead me through since my glo-up four years ago. He had no idea what was going on, but he was was right there with me through every haircare tutorial and was familiar with the dressing rooms in every major clothing chain in M--- before 2010 was over.”

She rocks back, letting her legs fall apart and tugging her feet in. “He tried to ask questions about the series, but he didn’t really know what to ask, and honestly, I didn’t really know how to answer. I ended up saying that it’s kind of private, and he told me that he would leave it be.” She leans in hard toward the camera, eyeing the lens accusingly as she arches a dusty eyebrow. “Because he respects me and my decisions and my autonomy as a person and is a good father, _Viewers_.” She leans back again, resuming a more relaxed manner. “And I trust him to give me my privacy and space.

“But I still really wanted to get him involved, and I’ve been trying to find ways to spend time with him since the term started, so I invited him to help me with an episode!” She stretches her legs out, pulling one back to her chest before continuing. “It’s such a relief not to have to hide this entire channel from him anymore. And he was so cute today!! You’ll see soon enough, but he got all cleaned up and made sure the kitchen was spotless before we started the video, and just." She sighs happily. "I love my papa so much.

“So without further ado, Cooking with Papa!”

 

Cosette stands in an entirely different room--a kitchen, judging by the counters and sink behind her. She wears the same outfit she started the video in, only now it’s flour-free. Despite the lights in the room, she is in partial-shadow.

“Hello! Today, I have my first-ever guest being featured--my very own papa!” She side-steps, looking off-screen and making motions for the person to move in next to her.

Soon, a man enters the frame. Either Cosette is short or this man is a giant: Cosette’s head barely reaches his shoulders. The camera cuts out there, preventing the viewer from seeing the great man’s face. As promised, the man appears overdressed for baking cookies: he wears a white button-down shirt, and the tops of black trousers can be seen peeking over the counter. The sleeves are rolled up to his elbows already, softening the severity of the look and exposing thick forearms. There’s the suggestion of ink on the inside of one of them, but the man seems careful to keep his arms turned in.

“Papa, this is your last chance to change into something more comfortable before you ruin your Sunday best,” Cosette warns the man, corners of her mouth turned upward.

His face doesn’t need to be visible to hear that he is smiling. “For a video you want to show your friends about your life? I wouldn’t embarrass you like that.”

“Papa,” Cosette groans, happiness plain on her face despite it. “I could never be embarrassed by you.”

“And I’d like to maintain that faith.”

She hip-checks his thigh, and their laughter intermingles. Whether Cosette is his biological child or not, it’s clear that she learned to laugh with him. 

Once the merriment has died down, Cosette speaks up again. “Today, we’re baking cookies to take to the library for a community cookie-decorating activity. But more importantly, we’re baking to show everyone who the real cooking bosses are in this shindig.”

“Cosette,” the man’s voice chides good-naturedly. 

“Papa,” Cosette imitates before turning back to the camera. “Every December the local library does a free cookie-decorating event, and anyone’s allowed to come and participate. However, there’s also a competition that coincides with the event to see who can bake the best cookies--the ‘entry fee’ is one hundred cookies. Apparently, the same family has been the reigning champs for six years running, which is why Papa and I are going to _take them down_.”

An amused chuckle is her father’s only addition.

“So now that you’re aware of what’s at stake here, Papa and I are gonna break out our super-secret sugar cookie recipe that has been passed down for generations.”

“That recipe came from Mademoiselle S---,” her father counters with a playful nudge of his elbow.

“And she’s family!” insists Cosette in false outrage. “Focus, Papa, focus!”

“All right, I’m focusing.”

Cosette grabs a piece of paper from off-camera, flattening it out on the counter in from of her. At this angle, the words would be nearly impossible to read even if censoring hadn't reduced them to a giant smudge. “Ingredient inventory! Super-secret ingredient number one?”

A poorly-stifled laugh can be heard as Cosette’s father reaches off-screen to retrieve something, dropping an item that is very obviously two bags of flour in a Tesco bag on the counter in front of them. “Present and accounted for.”

“Super-secret ingredient number two?”

A full carton of eggs appears.

“Three?”

Butter--an intimidating amount of butter. Enough for an army.

“Four?”

It’s hard to say how many bags of sugar are in the plastic bag. 

“Five through nine?”

Instead of a sheer plastic bag, these items are contained in a canvas tote. Clacking plastic bottles can be heard, but beyond that the contents are a mystery. Cosette’s father peers into the tote immediately after placing it on the counter. “There are only four ingredients here.”

Cosette leans in, verifying what he’s just said. “Oh, I know what we’re missing.” She rushes out of the frame, returning several seconds later with something clasped tightly in her hand that she doesn’t let go of until her hand has fully disappeared inside the tote. “There. We’re ready to begin.”

 

The video picks up pace, fast enough to eliminate any dead time but slow enough to track the pair through the steps. The gentle strains of a song build as the cooking begins.

An unknown amount of sugar is measured off-camera by Cosette into a bowl and blended with a dizzying number of eggs. On the left, her father combines several dry ingredients in an even larger bowl which, the camera barely detects, already contained a smattering of white powder. After, he slices chunks of solid butter into the bowl at an impressive rate even given the already-increased speed of the video. He divests the bag of all of its contents in the time it takes Cosette to return to her space with a whisk and hand a pastry blender to to her father, neither one turning from their respective tasks. Cosette pulls her bowl off to the side, tugging the canvas bag with it and returning to the camera a blink later. 

When Cosette’s father seems to deem the dry mixture ready, he steps back and allows Cosette to pour her wet mixture into his bowl. She abandons her whisk in favor of a fork and begins mixing, a process her father takes over after several second of video time. While he takes his turn Cosette moves her bowl, the dirty measuring implements, and her whisk to the sink on the opposite side of the space and begins washing them. Soon after, Cosette’s father and his bowl move out of the frame. He reappears next to Cosette at the sink a moment later, now-empty bowl in hand and both with their backs to the camera as the music plays them out.

 

Cosette and her father both stand in front of the camera once more, her father greasing a baking sheet with a butter wrapper in real-time as Cosette assembles a wire cooling rack. 

“Okay, so the dough’s been in the fridge for an--”

“Unspecified period of time.” The man nudges Cosette at her pause. “You’re the one who was saying how super-secret our sugar cookie methodology is.”

Cosette looks amused as she continues her task. “You’re right, you’re right,” she concedes. “The dough’s been in the fridge for an _unspecified period of time_ now. We’re gonna make a sample batch now to see if anything needs amending, and if not we’ll proceed with baking the rest of it. Papa’s got a couple of pans greased and ready to go, and we sanitized this counter space right after washing the dishes, so I think we’re about ready to get to work!”

 

The video picks up pace once more through the steps. Both step away from the counter to wash their hands. Cosette finishes first and returns to the counter space to distribute flour over the surface and pat some onto a rolling pin. Her father appears as she is preparing the pin, dropping a smallish mound of dough into the flour before accepting the tool from Cosette.

He makes quick work of the dough, dividing it into two smaller balls. When the first is worked flat, he slides it to Cosette who rotates through every cookie-cutter shape, carefully placing each on a baking sheet before collecting the scraps and passing them back to her father.

This process occurs three times in total before the baking sheet is filled with angels, stars, snowmen, hearts, and bells, and Cosette disappears off-camera with the tray, returning empty-handed.

 

“Timer’s set,” Cosette says to her father before turning to the camera with a wink, “for an unspecified period of time.” She looks down to the floury counter, brows furrowing as if in contemplation.

“We’ll leave it until the cookies are done, it isn’t long.” 

Cosette looks up to the man, her face somber. 

Her father reaches an arm around her in response, pulling her in close to him. “What is it, Lark?” Concern colors his tone.

She shrugs helplessly. “I love spending time with you. And I love cooking with you, really.” She sighs. “I just wish I was able to do this with friends, too. People my own age.”

He tugs her a little closer, and a blurry flash presses to the colorful scarf wrapped around Cosette’s curls. “We’ve only just moved here. It will come,” he assures. “I’m sorry we’ve never...had the time…I know how quiet it must be, with only me for company.”

“It’s okay, Papa. It’s not a big deal.” They stand together like that a little longer before Cosette pulls away. “Anyway, you’re wearing black: how on earth hasn’t all of the flour in this entire kitchen attached itself to you?”

The man reaches up to tug at the tips of his collar, only barely on-camera. “Years and years of being a papa.”

Cosette snorts, rolling her eyes and shifting flour around on the counter in front of her.

The man looks hesitant as his hands fall. His body turns forward, and one hand reaches out to collect a tentative handful of flour. He weighs it in his hand before tossing it at her shoulder in a poof of white. “You, however, have no such excuse.”

Cosette tenses, turning slowly to face him with a shocked look on her face that shifts to a devilish grin when she looks up at him. “You’ve picked the wrong fight today, Papa,” she says, reaching into the still-open bag on flour on the counter. 

He barely throws his hands up in time to brace against the cloud that forms in front of him, blurring the distinction between his shirt and trousers. They’re both laughing as he surges forward to dig a massive paw into the bag, flour clouding the air as Cosette runs to the other side of the kitchen with a happy shriek with her father taking off in pursuit.

“I’ve got the main cache!” Cosette declares from an area of the kitchen not visible from the frame. “You’ll never take me alive!”

Her father is momentarily visible running back across the kitchen, Cosette chasing him with a fresh bag of flour and cackling maniacally. He returns to his former place in front of the camera, grabbing the original bag of flour as he moves and holding it in the air just in time for Cosette to come crashing into him, her own bag of flour at the ready.

“Put down the bag or I dump it!” the man threatens, sounding as if he is quoting a scene from a movie.

Cosette hesitates, wicked grin still spread wide across your face. “Empty it, and cover yourself with it!”

“And myself with it,” he promises, the bag tipping ever-forward.

Cosette acts first, flinging the entirety of her bag upward at her papa as the other bag’s content rain down from above, effectively coating everything in view of the camera with dust as belabored laughter rings out amidst coughs.

 

“The lens was too dirty to continue filming after that, but rest assured, the final product was delicious,” Cosette promises from her bed, which by now also has its own thin film of white. “Check out my next episode to find out if we won, and subscribe to my channel for more content pertaining to my papa and me! See you next time!!”

**Author's Note:**

> Of course they won. _Take that, Martin family._
> 
> The song playing during the montage is [What's Inside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fub_sCCkRDM) from Waitress because my beta sent it to my while I was still brainstorming for this episode and it stuck.
> 
> (Fun fact: with one exception, all of the corresponding stories were written after the main storyline, though I knew I was going to write several of them before I finished.)
> 
> I'd apologize for the musical references, but I don't want to lie to you like that. They truly did start out accidental...
> 
> More importantly, this is absolutely the thing that makes me the angriest about Davies's adaptation! Cosette and Valjean _adore_ each other! Even if Valjean doesn't always know what to do or the right way to do it, he always tries. Fuck you, Davies.
> 
> Next episode is [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17561900/chapters/41701805#workskin)!
> 
> Anyway, if you liked this or want to throw hands over interpretations of Valjean's relationship with Cosette, you can fight me in the comments below or at my [tumblr](http://shitpostingfromthebarricade.tumblr.com).


End file.
